


The Pie Day Massacre

by moontyrant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asshole trope, Fluff, Hospitals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moontyrant/pseuds/moontyrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was one of the few edible—nay, enjoyable— foodstuffs the cafeteria produced and it sold out quick. Pie day did not come often, either; Pam liked to assemble the ingredients herself and lovingly bake them the perfect amount of time, and that means cost to the hospital. Pie only happened maybe once every two weeks, if not once a month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pie Day Massacre

The hospital cafeteria was typically quiet this late after lunch and Dean Winchester liked to take his lunch breaks in the lull before the dinner rush. A handful of nurses, doctors and overwrought family members littered the tables, drinking love-in-a-canoe coffee and eating tasteless food on beige plastic trays. Dean approached the kitchen, tray in hand. 

“Good afternoon, Pam.”  


She smiled wide, black ringlets held back by a fine hairnet. “Afternoon, Dean.”  


“Any chance there’s some pie left?”  
He knew there wouldn’t be. It was one of the few edible—nay, enjoyable— foodstuffs the cafeteria produced and it sold out quick. Pie day did not come often, either; Pam liked to assemble the ingredients herself and lovingly bake them the perfect amount of time, and that means cost to the hospital. Pie only happened maybe once every two weeks, if not once a month.  


“Afraid not,” Pam sighed, plopping a heap of runny mashed potatoes on his plate and garnishing them with boiled broccoli. “The RN sitting over there took the last piece.”  


“Last time you promised you’d save me a slice,” Dean wheedled, because whining isn’t manly. He glared over his shoulder at the lone figure hunched over a table, pushing crust crumbles despondently around his empty plate. The RN in question wore royal blue scrubs, solid in color unlike so many of his coworkers who preferred seasonal or cartoony work duds.  


“I know, Dean. But Castiel looked like he was having a really tough day and I couldn’t say no because I didn’t even know if you would be down here for lunch.”  


“What about my tough day!” he manfully doesn’t whine.  


Pam levelled a look at him that could curdle milk. “You didn’t have to sponge-bathe and dress Captain Gangrene in ICU today.”  
Be that as it may, Dean still has to clean and sanitize Captain Gangrene’s room when they take him to surgery, and that is no walk in the park. He tucks his nose under his stiff work shirt, breathing in the industrial detergent and his own deodorant while he mops the floor and disinfects the surfaces. Last, he gathers the putrid bedding in a bundle and stuffs it on the trolley. He does not get paid enough to deal with the gangrene stank, and he doesn’t know what the nurses get paid, but they should get a goddam pizza party for dealing with Captain Gangrene in the flesh.  


When everything gets put away in its proper place, Dean washed his hands clear up the elbows and peels the hospital jumpsuit off. He slipped into street clothes: white wife beater, ruddy flannel and faded jeans. Still, the stink of his last room and the perpetual hospital smell lingered on his skin, in his hair, an ambient ghost that doesn’t assail the nose so much as haunt it.

 

Dean programmed Pam’s number into his phone, knowing this day would come. He felt the old Motorola brick buzz in his hip pocket, but has the presence of mind not to check it until he is safely tucked into a recently vacated room. He flipped it open with a grin.  


**Made pie. Stawberry-rhubarb. Its 1st come 1st serve.**  


Dean rushed through the next few rooms like a custodial typhoon, mind buzzing. He hadn’t had a proper strawberry-rhubarb pie in months, and he knew Pam won't skimp. With summer pies she liked to get her ingredients fresh, sometimes from her own garden. He grinned to himself, remembering last summer when she baked him that pie special. The top crust was golden brown and sprinkled liberally with white sugar, the way the filling oozed from the sides over his plate, red-green on white ceramic, steaming still. She scooped a generous helping of vanilla ice cream to accompany his slice, and he watched it melt and run with the strawberries and rhubarb pieces. He wondered if there was any ice cream in the hospital kitchen.  


He took an early lunch, scrubbed his hands clean and all but sprinted to the cafeteria only to encounter a line. Dean took a beige tray and turned it around in his hands while he waited. He could smell the pie. It must have just come out of the oven. He breathed it in, eyes fluttering closed. It would be syrupy and dangerously hot. Ahead of him, Pam served the first slices to a pair of gossiping doctors.  


The line inched along, and though it was not the longest line Dean ever waited in, it felt like it. The queue felt longer still when he realized every single goddam person ahead of him was also buying pie. He chewed his cheek and glared at the solid blue scrubs in front of him. How small could you cut a pie? No, scratch that. How small would _Pamela_ cut a pie? Would she cut it into eighths? Tenths? And how many pies would she make? When she used premade crust or canned filling, she might make five or six in a shot, but from scratch, she’d only make two at most.  


Two, because that’s how much her pie crust recipe made.  


Dean ran the numbers and tried not to squirm. He could see the pie tin from here, sitting lonely and innocuous next to a veritable tank of soggy vegetarian spaghetti and wilting salad. There were three slices left until Pam placed a slice on a balding administrator’s plate next to his spaghetti.  


And then there were two.  


Ahead of him were a pair of nurses, one in Tweety Bird scrubs and the other in solid blue, so as long as one of these assholes skipped the pie he would get a piece.  
Tweety Bird needed her pie, with spaghetti and salad please. Pam served her the good stuff, shooting Dean an apologetic look while the nurse scurried away, white shoes squeaking on the yellowed linoleum floor.  


And then there was one.  


“And what would you like, Castiel?” she asked Blue Scrubs.  


“Just the pie, Miss Barnes,” the nurse told her.  


Behind him, Dean seethed. “Pie? What, this pie?” Pam asked, face a careful blank.  


“This pie, yes,” the nurse intoned in his rumbly, pie-stealing voice.  


“Of course,” Pam replied, hands not moving. “Anything else?”  


“Nothing else. I think the pie will suffice.” She spooned the last slice onto his plate and he took it with a low “Thank you, ma’am,” and strode way to a quiet table in the farthest corner of the cafeteria.  


“Tell me you have another pie in there,” Dean demanded, knowing from her face that it was a lost cause.  


“The first one sold out this morning,” she told him.  


“Why won’t you just save me a piece?”  


“Because if Ellen finds out I’m hiding food she’ll give me The Boot!” Pam hissed. They both spared a glance into the bustling kitchen behind her, where Ellen, Ash and Missouri worked.  


Administration and Ellen shared a strained relationship because of The Boot. Dean remembered eavesdropping on that particular conversation while he mopped the floor outside the kitchen. “You can’t just go around leaving boot prints on your employee’s backsides, Mrs. Harvelle,” Zachariah scolded her. “It’s unprofessional and, in case it escaped your attention, hospitals don’t really like lawsuits.”  


“Are you telling me what I can and cannot do in my kitchen?” Ellen demanded.  
It must have been at this point that Zachariah remembered he was talking to the same woman who chased and partially concussed one of the security personnel with a wooden spoon because he called her “Grandma.”  


“Just…just don’t do it again, okay?” he relented.

 

Dean awoke early on a gray October day and put his game face on. He showered, shaved, made growling faces at the mirror and folded into his custodial jumpsuit. It was a Thursday and, more importantly, it was Pie Day. It was the first Pie Day since the strawberry-rhubarb disappointment, nearly five weeks ago.  
But today he prepared himself. Today, he would be ready.  


**Apple and blueberry on the menu. store-bought crap. Six pies total.**  


Dean flipped his Motorola shut and felt a sly smirk slide into place. Store-bought filling and premade crust could not compare to homemade, but it wasn’t just about pie any more. This was about the principle of Pie Day. This was about Dean working his ass off all day, every day in this hospital for a tiny paycheck and no thanks, but he would have his pie.  


He would get his just desserts. Literally.  


He strolled through the bleached white hospital corridors, the Mission Impossible theme playing on repeat in his head. “Ah! Just the man I wanted to see!”  


Dean paused to regard a nervous Chuck suddenly barring his way. That is not to say that Chuck was particularly nervous here in the hall with Dean; he tended to be nervous in general. One time Dean saw the man pick up a broom and the whole thing came apart in his hands, and the clang when the bristled head hit the floor made him jump easily three feet in the air. Watching Chuck’s career is to watch Zachariah slowly pull his hair out yelling “Where can we possibly put this man where he won’t combust!?” The man originally worked as a nurse in the ER, then ICU, then the OR, until they put him in a desk, then behind a broom, steadily giving him lower pressure jobs and seeing no change. Of course, the demotions weren’t entirely for Chuck’s benefit. If you break a broom and sob about how everything you touch dies, that’s just sad. If you do the same thing in the operating room, people get upset.  


Chuck presented a new face to Dean. “This is Gabriel. Gabriel, this is Dean. He will be training you today.”  


“I will?” Dean asked, incredulous.  


Chuck shot him a long suffering look. “Gabriel is the newest member of our team and I know you’ll treat him well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork to file.”  


Gabriel was half a head shorter than Dean, round-faced and his hair threatened to thin at the top. He wore an ill-fitting custodial jumpsuit with a crisp new nametag pinned to his front and what Dean would come to recognize as a permanent aura of self-assurance. “Is it just me or is that guy two bad days away from taking a swan dive off a tall building?”  


Dean shook his head. “He’s a tortured artist type. Apparently he writes short stories in his off time.”  


To his relief, Gabriel isn’t new to janitor work. “Used to be a custodian for a college. Swept the floors of Crawford Hall for years.”  


“Why’d you leave?” Dean grunted. He pushed the end table away from the bed to gather up the tissues that fell behind it.  


“Needed a change of scenery,” Gabriel replied with a shrug. He squinted at the tissues gracing the other side of the bed. “A regular cum fort in here, huh?”  


Dean huffs air out of his nose and checks his watch. “I try not to think about it too much.”  


In theory with two people working the rooms, they should move faster than if Dean were to work them alone. In practice it takes longer because on his own he tends to cut corners and rush, but that’s no way to train someone new. Dean clamped down on the impatience bubbling in his chest and walked Gabriel through the procedure. He scribbled a quick checklist on some hospital stationary when they walked by the nurses’ station. “You’ll memorize this after a while,” he explained. “By this time next week you’ll have it down pat in your brain. Are you ready for lunch?”  


Gabriel glanced at the ancient clock hunched on the wall by the nurses’ station. “It feels like we just started.”  


Dean led him to the restrooms and washed his hands in hot, soapy water. “It’s pie day,” he offered by way of explanation.  


“Oh thank God! I thought it was just Thursday.”  


Dean snorted. “Well if we don’t get down there now, there won’t be any pie left for us.”  


Gabriel shook his head while he waggled his hands under the air dryer. “I brought my own lunch,” he replied over the drone of antiquated hand-drying machinery. “You go ahead.”  


“Alright. Meet back in thirty.”  


Dean did not jog to the cafeteria, but only just. Ellen managed to cook up a menu that smells somehow pungent and bland at once, but he could just make out a whiff of pie on the air, all but crowded out by some kind of gray casserole and a vegetable soup. The line today was too long for his taste with eleven people ahead of him and more piling behind him. Once again, solid blue scrubs stands directly in front of him, as if they both had the same idea and took early lunches for the sake of pie.  


This time they can both have pie. Dean slid his hands in his pockets and waited, comfortable in the knowledge that he would at last get to partake. Dean watched the people in the cafeteria mill about and, bored, directed his gaze back to the RN ahead of him. The man was tall and well-built with messy dark hair that looked like he ran his hands through it when worried or annoyed. He’s lucky to still have hair in this hospital, if that’s the case. His scrubs hung loosely, but Dean could see the definition on his forearms: this guy worked out, and for good reason. Nurses have to lift, roll over and transport some heavy motherfuckers. Too many little girls get their degrees in nursing, enter the hospital and leave with back injuries because a three-hundred pound amputee fell on them at the wrong moment. If Blue Scrubs—what did Pam call him? Cassidy? Castleton? Cartheridge? – weren’t dicking around on his phone, Dean might start a conversation. He might ask him where he works out. Dean suppressed a wolfish grin and watched Pam swap out an empty pie tin for a whole new pie. He might ask him if Dean could come along on a guest pass, yeah, to scope out a new gym. They’d stop for ice cream afterwards as a treat for all their working out.  


The line inched forward slowly because everyone wanted pie. Dean amused himself with his ongoing daydream about Blue Scrubs in front of him, because there was no way he’d let a workout date end with something as wholesome as ice cream cones. Of course it would turn into dinner later that evening, which would turn into coffee at his place, or a stiff drink. Or two. Or five.  


Blue Scrubs made an annoyed noise while he read a text. His thumbs darted across the touch screen of his phone and he hit the send button aggressively. He ran a hand through his hair. He looked around the cafeteria, caught Dean’s gaze, and gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement. Ahead of them, Pam traded the empty pie tin, still warm and sticky, for a hot, new pie.  


Blue Scrubs’ phone buzzed and he brought it right up to his face to squint at the conversation bubble before he dropped the phone back into his breast pocket. Someone at the front of the line asked for two pieces of pie, the greedy bastard. For a moment the seed of doubt wormed its way into Dean's heart, but he stamped down before it could flourish. There will be pie left. There has to be.  


Blue Scrubs stepped up to Pam, plate in hand. “I need all the pie.” The words fell flat, as if he didn't really want to be saying them at all.  


If Dean were a melodramatic man, his heart might stop. As it were, Dean felt puzzlement slide into place. “Excuse me?” Pam said, mirroring Dean’s frown.  


“I need all the pie,” Blue Scrubs rumbled, eyes trained on the tin where three slices remained.  


“Are you sure?” Pam’s eyes slid to Dean and back.  


“I’m sharing them with a friend.”  


Pam wordlessly handed over the three slices and before she could say anything to Dean Ellen took the empty tin to drop it in a sink of bubbles. “No worries,” he said, flashing his most infectious grin. “I know you have another pie back there.”  


She shook her head.  


“C’mon Pam. Don’t wind me up.”  


“I’m sorry, Dean. Castiel took the last of the pie.” She scowled. “Hey don’t look at me like that! I’m not the one who bought all the pie!” She slapped gray noodles on his plate and pushed him along to keep the line moving.  


Dean paid for his food and followed Blue Scrubs—Castiel—through the melee of lunching staff and guests. Gabriel toyed with his phone at an empty table, smirking. “I think you got something stuck to your shoe there, bro,” he said from where he sat.  


Castiel turned and jumped to see an annoyed Dean looming over him. His eyes bobbed from angry Winchester to his nametag and back. “Hello Dean.” Castiel looked to Gabriel and back to Dean, mind working very fast. “Gabriel did you want your pie?” He slid the plate across the table.  


“All day I thought it was just Thursday,” he said conversationally. He speared a plastic fork through pie crust and brought a piece to his mouth. “But apparently it’s pie day, Dean tells me. Gotta get down here early or all the pie might be gone.”  


Castiel levelled a killing look Gabriel. “So you had me buy all the pie?”  


“You’re kind of an asshole, you know that?” Dean snapped, still annoyed but deflating.  


“Aw, don’t be that way. It was funny. You should have seen your face.”  


Castiel rolled his eyes and tugged the pie plate away from him. “Forgive my assbutt brother,” he said, pushing the pie towards Dean. “He thinks he’s hilarious.”  


Dean lifted his own plastic fork and, at Castiel’s urging, took one of the slices for himself and let the brothers squabble over the two left over.  


Store-bought pie crust with apple pie filling from a can, heated together and served on a beige plastic plate on a beige plastic tray. It tasted like victory.  


“Castiel, was it?” Dean asked around a bite of cinnamon apple goo. The man across from him nodded, eyes round and an impossible shade of blue. “Do you work out? You look like you work out.”


End file.
